In many industrial applications, proper cooling of machinery is essential for efficient functioning of the machinery. Adequate cooling for the machinery must be provided without unduly complicating the structure or overall manufacturing process. Thus, industrial cooling can be a major problem.
As a particular example of a cooling problem, a turbine engine may be cited. A turbine engine is a very important part of many, heavy-duty industrial procedures. Most turbine engines may well have heavy-duty industrial applications, in view of their high power to weight ratio. A turbine engine may be used for generating electrical power or directly operating factory machinery.
Whatever its use, the turbine engine generates a sufficient amount of heat so as to require an extensive cooling system. Not all turbines require a separate cooling system. Some have built in cooling systems others such as those associated with this module require additional cooling. Since these turbine engines cannot operate without a cooling system, it is highly critical that the chances of failure for a cooling system be greatly reduced. This reduction of failure chance is accomplished best by redundancy.
While redundancy provides a very desirable backup system, it can still create a problem. One main problem created is that a machine with a redundant capability, must have a great size in that a number of systems are duplicated. This size requires a substantial amount of space, in order to achieve the desired cooling protection and other appropriate advantages. Such space can be at a premium. Thus, it is desirable to reduce the size of the cooling system while at the same time providing for the redundancy and minimize chances of failure.
Customarily, each of these turbine style engines are cooled by a series of four fans each operated by its own electric motor. The structure of the fans and the electric motor adds to the complication of the structure and creates a substantial requirement for space. Thus, the solution to the problem of cooling the turbine engine complicates the space factor. If the cooling of the turbine engine can be accomplished without great sacrifice in space, a great advantage can be obtained.
Additionally the electric motor must be cooled properly in its environment with the turbine engine. The electric motor provides power for cooling the turbine engine. Failure of that electric motor clearly means that the turbine engine cannot be operated.
This electric motor cooling is hypercritical because without it, the electric motor will overheat. When the electric motor overheats, the insulation in the electric motor fails. Then a complete electric motor failure occurs. Not only is this electric motor expensive in its own right, the economic and production losses incurred when a turbine engine is additionally required to be shut down are substantial. Thus, the cooling factor for an electric motor is a major concern for many reasons.
With cooling devices of the prior art, this function can only be accomplished by using four separate fans connected to four separate drive or electric motors. That is to say, each fan of the prior art has its own electric drive motor. Each electric motor is of substantial size and requires a great deal of space.
Each of the electric motors of the prior art also includes an integral electric motor cooling fan. The prior art requires that two of the four electric motors must be operated simultaneously to produce the required process air to cool the turbine engine. If the turbine engine is not properly cooled, severe damage to the turbine engine can result.
Reliability is also a major concern for users of these types of cooling machinery. One major potential source of problems is the bearings used in the electric motors. The cooling apparatus and the turbine engine both produce vibrations. With just one electric motor operating at any time, the vibration thus produced can be detrimental to the bearings in any other electric motor, which is not operating.
When the bearings in the unused electric motor and fan are not rotating while under an inherent heavy static load and vibration, problems can arise. Such a static load in combination with the vibration can produce hard spots on the inner race of the bearing. Each of these hard spots is known as brinelling. In other words, the problem caused by the particular setup required to cool the turbine engines is injurious or damaging to the standby electric motor.
When the fan is rotating, such wear does not occur. However, if the fan is rotating and in operation, the lack of stand-by availability of the backup system becomes apparent. If the system is not backed up by a reliable fan, which has minimal running hours on it, the backup factor and redundancy factor set forth are not met.
So, the complex cooling factors of the turbine engine mitigate accomplishing the required cooling efficiently. The size of the cooling apparatus is one problem. The number of electric motors required for the cooling adds to the inefficiency. Thus, a compact, efficient cooling module can solve many problems in the art.